Guilty Pleasures #31 - The Lego Movie

OK, there’s been a lot of cr*p and slightly less cr*p movies I’ve been watching this year, let’s take a look at something good, the Lego Movie.

I know what you’re thinking. Or at least you were before this movie came out. That sounds like a complete corporate shill, only existing to sell toys and you’d be right but this one actually has effort put into it, and they incorporate a large number of lego characters from throughout the years, for mostly cameo roles and of course as long as Warner Bros owns the rights to them, plus a number of a made up characters for this movie.

Produced on a $60m budget, this movie hit the right notes with people, earning $460m at the box office, 96% on rotten tomatoes and 83% on metacritic, not to mention people were miffed when this wasn't nominated for an oscar. and there’s a sequel and 3 different spinoff movies coming out over the next few years, one of which already has a trailer dropped. What’s made it so successful? Let’s find out.

After lego versions of the film logos looking like they’ve been hung up by string, we open at lava world and we get a long establishing shot for no reason. We see Vitruvius, voiced by Morgan Freeman. It’s been a while, time to dust off an old meme

Anyway, Vitruvius is apparently psychic and sense something in the force about our main villain’s arrival. The villain of this is Lord Business. A guy who runs a sort-of dystopia where everybody has to follow the instructions. Kind of ironic coming from the endless product line that is Lego. Just see the wealth of stuff that came with this movie.

Lord Business sends his soldiers after Vitruvius but he defeats them easily because he’s a master builder and sees everything, then Lord Business blinds him. This is the first of the list of his crimes that make the ending a tad too happy for my tastes. Lord Business has found the ultimate super weapon, the Kragle. As his minions are taking it away, Vitruvius blurts out that there’s a prophecy about the piece of resistance that can disarm the Kragle, a special person with a yellow face (because Yellow isn’t racist – unless you’re Chinese in which case it’s incredibly racist) with the help of an army will disarm the Kragle and be the most important interesting person of all time. Lord Business rightfully dismisses this and kicks Vitruvius off the cliff. Add this to the list, also.

We cut to 8 and a half years later where our main character, Emmet, voiced by Chris Pratt having a hell of a year. We get his character introduction. He’s a dork, he tries to fit in but is ultimately invisible. There are some decent jokes here but not much plot so I’m skipping a bunch. President Business announces Taco Tuesday, a day where everyone gets a free Taco for some reason.

We also hear the song that is supposed to be a parody, I think, but is actually a really cool song in it’s own right. He works on a building site, blowing up everything weird and rebuilding it according to the instructions. 5 hours later, work’s apparently over and Emmett loses his book. He grabs it but here’s something, a person in dark clothing looking for a relic. Emmett is about to report but he’s stunned when she takes off her hood. This joke goes on a bit too long, speaking of jokes that go on too long, he falls down a long tunnel, bumping into things all the way down. He finds the piece of resistance, which calls him to touch it for some reason.

He gets vision for some reason and wakes up in prison, again for some reason. How did the police find him down that massive hole? He wakes up to see Bad Cop, played by Liam Neeson, an actor so awesome I’ll dedicate a theme month to him at some point. For now you’ll just have to deal with him here, and his cameo in the Dark Knight Rises. (I will do Batman Begins at some point, I think)

He thinks Emmett is a master builder and begins trashing the room. The piece of resistance is permanently stuck to his back, as permanently as it gets in movies like this anyway. Bad cop thinks it’s lying, it can’t be a co-incidence he’s shown up with the piece 3 days before President Business is going to use the Kragle to end the world. Emmett still thinks President Business is a good guy.

They show Emmett a video of his co-workers dissing him, saying he’s invisible and Bad Cop thinks it’s cover. Unable to break Emmet, he’s tied into a chair with a laser firing at him, fortunately the lady from earlier shows up and kicks ass and takes names. As Emmet is broken free, Bad cop comes back in and alerts the police to their escape. Our lady has a special power, she can see ways of turning random sh*t into whatever she pleases, so she creates a motorcycle from the alley to make their escape.

Car chase ensures and we hear that the woman’s name is Wyldstyle and she’s none too pleased to discover he isn’t a master builder. They head through a portal to the Old West where they decide to head into the town in disguise. Wyldstyle says here that she has a boyfriend and it’s super serious. Yeah, they’ll hook up at the end of the movie.

Now time for the premise of the movie. There are different realms and it used to be that everyone could travel between them but Lord Business was confused and since his will is for some reason greater than everyone else’s (so he has money, he can’t be the only person with money) he erected walls between the realms and began hunting the master builders. Then we here the bits about the Kragle I explained earlier.

Meanwhile on the millionth floor of a very impractical building where everything related to the movie is being done (seriously, what happens on any of the other floors) Lord Business loudly exposits his plan to Bad Cop in a way that could be lazy writing or could be foreshadowing for the twist later on. Lord Business uses the Kragle, created into a weapon called a TAKOS to glue Bad Cop’s parents in place then destroys the good side of Bad Cop with nail polish and a cotton swab. Add these to the list.

Back in the Old West, they meet up with Vitruvius. They begin chanting an enter Emmet’s mind, where we see his idea for a double decker couch, this is actually a plot point. Anyway, he’s seen their version of god, the Man Upstairs, who has a strangely human hand… more on that later. It’s time to assemble the master builders.

Bad cop arrives and Emmet is immediately ratted out. Time for another action scene. Their vehicle loses a wheel and Emmet attaches a wheel to his head, and climbs to the wheel’s position keep the car on balance, they end up on a train which Bad Cop is somehow on top of. They build a ramp to try and lose him but his car has flight mode and lasers so he derails the train as it heads over a chasm. Fortunately, they’re saved by the timing of Batman. The incredibly impeccable timing of Batman.

Batman is Wyldstyle’s boyfriend and deals with Bad cop with relative ease, they head through the sun into Middle Zealand where they convert to a road vehicle for some reason and drive up a rainbow to Cloud Cuckoo Land. We’re introduced to our final main character, just 5 minutes after the last one. This is princess UniKitty, and her attitude is, well, we’ll get to that. Her realm is… well, it’s f*cking nuts with negative thoughts not allowed.

The master builders have gathered including Superman and Green Lantern, who’s ignored because of the movie. Vitruvius makes his speech, making fun of Gandalf and Dumbledore’s similar looks, and I lie, there are a few non-WB properties here, we’ve got the Simpsons, Ninja Turtles and we’ll have Star Wars later on. Naturally, given that he was not prepared to make a speech, nor was he experienced in making speeches screws it up.

Oh and we’re introduced to Metalbeard, a sort of supporting character who says that the task is impossible as he tried before and his crew were captured, and he barely survived himself. Anyway, a few of the Master Builders abandon the area but before the others can Bad Cop begins shooting the place up. He found them using a tracking device he’d planted on Emmet had been invisible up to this point.

How did Bad Cop plant that tracker, it can’t have been back at the police station, else he wouldn’t have needed to ask the locals at the saloon. But he never got close to Emmet during the chase? With the Batmobile and the Invisible jet destroyed (how did they find the invisible jet) Batman says it’s every man for himself. Superman is taken down by a piece of chewing gum (because of course he is) and Green Lantern manages to stick himself to it. There’s a difference between being disliked and f*cking moronic. Green Lantern can create constructs that could’ve actually been helpful.

Wyldstyle calls Batman back to help Emmet, they hit Cloud Cuckoo Land’s stabilisers and it’s an entire realm destroyed, add that to Lord Business’ crime list. Anyway, time to meet another new character. Benny, who tries to build a spaceship but is reminded that the skies are surrounded and that would be stupid. They decide to build a sub because Batman stole Emmet’s idea but instead of working together they’re combining their own ideas and making a hodgepodge of it.

The sub heads under as everyone else is captured, including f*cking Wonder Woman. Unikitty tries to remain positive as Emmet reveals he’s managed to build his double-decker couch idea. The rest of the sub falls apart, and Bad Cop is lead to believe they’re all dead. He reports the news to Lord Business, and tells him the only thing that survived is the double-decker couch, which is dimensionally transcendental apparently because they were all hiding inside it.

Fortunately, their drift is cancelled by the return of Metalbeard. He says they need ideas that are so cr*p that Lord Business can overlook. Time for Emmet to give his speech about how working together they could be amazing and save the world. So he goes ahead with his new plan, build a spaceship just like the others heading into the tower to pass through unnoticed. Batman points out they need a hyperdrive but fortunately the Millennium Falcon shows up… Yeah… OK…(I'll point out this movie came out before Disney bought LucasFilm)

Batman heads aboard, upsetting Wyldstyle. But he’s soon back with the hyperdrive and the plan begins to work, they head inside. Benny and Metalbeard are in the control room, intending to disable the shield. Batman and Unikitty head to the boardroom with Batman under the brilliant disguise of Bruce Wayne, looking to invest and wondering what sound system their secret weapon has because… hell if I know.

Vitruvius is on lookout because joke and Emmet and Wyldstyle are preparing to make their move, using a robot disguise. They’re soon caught but they use the song from earlier to escape. After some character building, Wyldstyle reveals her real name is Lucy. Batman shows up, having left Unikitty, the most conspicuous of the master builders (except perhaps for Metalbeard), to stall… Great job, Bats.

Wyldstyle heads to the security terminal, lures Bad Cop away and takes out the guards. The shield is still up; the computer seems unable to interpret normal English from Benny but when Metalbeard tries it works perfectly. I suppose there’s a joke about Google to be made somewhere there but since I currently use one of their subsites, I won’t make it.

Emmet is just about to finish the job when Bad Cop confronts Wyldstyle, what follows leads to them all getting captured. Vitruvius takes down a bunch of the robot guards but is decapitated by a penny. Before dying, he admits he made up the prophecy which at the worst time to do this possible. He dies before he can explain any more. They use a blade to remove the piece of resistance and tosses it out of the window. He sets a charge to shock all the master builders in 100 seconds and for some reason leaves Bad Cop to die.

The Kragle is unleashed and is about to target Emmet’s home town. The top of the building comes off and begins flying over Bricksburg, freezing everything in place. The Ghost of Vitruvius arrives and says that the only thing needed to be special is self-belief, even mocking it for sounding like cat poster, which is another plot point.

35 seconds to go and Emmet manages to free himself, he rolls towards the window and tells Lucy it’s her turn to be the hero. He jumps out of the window, forcing the battery out the case, stopping the countdown and freeing the master builders. Wyldstyle comes up with an idea. She interrupts a recording and begins broadcasting to Bricksburg. She tells them the story of Emmet, using footage that couldn’t possibly exist. She inspires people to fight back by not following the instructions.

Robot guards attack but Bad Cop defeats them. Benny says he can build a space ship and finally he gets to do so. They head out and spot the citizens inspired by Wyldstyle, fighting back. We cut back to Emmet in the real world and we see a human child, Finn, playing with the spaceship. He’s the one coming up with the story. Now this is an interesting concept and a nice twist on this story… The plot being from the mind of a child allows some forgiveness over minor plot holes, conveniences and such. It also makes the somewhat cheesy nature of the story more organic. It’s a good twist, unfortunately, there is an issue, and I’ll get to it.

Down comes Finn’s father, played by Will Ferrell, the same actor who voices Lord Business, and that’s not the only thing they have in common. He sees the lego models as something that needs to stay in its place, and begins using the Kraft Glue, the Kragle, to restore order. He begins breaking stuff up and repairing it and gluing it together, in the fictional world, the rebellion is over. Emmet spots the piece of resistance as he’s been dragged over and he begins to move… in the real world. So lego characters are alive in the real world. That’s really f*cking stupid.

Finn grabs Emmet and shows him a cat poster that says believe. He re-enters the world and begins thinking like a master builder. He creates a mech suit and saves his friends, who help him make a final charge into the tower. He defeats the robot guards but gets his leg stuck. He threatens to unleash his secret weapon, his hand. He gives a speech about how he inspired, even Will Ferrell begins to see it in the real world. Finn shows him the idea he has and sees the parallels between him and Lord Business.

So this corny speech calming Lord Business down works more because of the parallels between Finn and his father. In the fictional universe it works far less well, may I remind you of his crime list:

Blinding Vitruvius

Knocking Vitruvius off a cliff

General corruption

Destroying bad cop’s good face

Gluing down Bad cop’s parents

Destroying cloud cuckoo land

Killing Vitruvius

Gluing down many innocent people

Torturing master builders to give out instructions (I glanced over that one)

Several dozen counts of attempted murder

Anyway, the piece of resistance disarms the Kragle and an explosion destroys the top of the tower (have fun rebuilding that), and deactivates the micro-managers. Batman tells Lucy to leave him to be with Emmet, cheering as Lord Business/Will Ferrell, begin removing the glue thanks to an antidote. Now that Finn can play down there, his sister can too, his much younger sister who creates a bunch of things which claim to be aliens from the planet Duplon. Cue end credits.

That was the Lego movie and this movie is awesome. A few minor plot-holes aside, most of which can be explained away this is just a fun movie to watch. It touches on some emotional themes although it drops Unikitty’s arc kinda quickly really and it tells a coherent story without dumbing it down too much.

For a U-rated kids film, it’s got heart to it that speaks to the nostalgia of adults, helped by incorporating characters like Batman into the main plot. Batman is largely one-note in this, he’s dark and not particularly brooding about it.

The animation is pretty damn brilliant. If I’m not mistaken the animation is from TT studios, the people who make the games and the animated tv specials. (Although more effort is clearly put into this). The voice acting is top notch, even from the actors who aren’t exactly used to voice acting. There’s some great vocal direction here, too often actors who aren’t used to voice acting sound terrible. I’m looking at you Elizabeth Henstridge and Iain De Caestecker (in Ultimate Spider-man).

I’m actually looking forward to the lego movie sequels and spinoffs.

Rage Rating: -1000%